The invention relates to a covering sole for footwear, comprising a comparatively wear-resistant, disc-shaped body which has at least substantially the same shape as a walking surface of the footwear.
Such a sole is mostly used when the original sole of the footwear has worn away. The covering sole is then attached to the footwear in some way and thus provides a renewed walking surface. It also happens that a walking surface of the footwear which has in fact not yet worn away completely, or is even unused, is covered with a covering sole so as to create a walking surface with different, more favourable walking properties. In particular, the comparatively smooth walking surface of a leather sole is thus replaced by the higher-friction walking surface of a synthetic resin covering sole.
Although the replacement or renewal of the soles of footwear is often left to a professional shoemaker, a considerable number of walkers prefer to do this themselves. Loose covering soles in various shoe sizes are commercially available for this purpose, which soles can be adhered to the existing soles of the footwear by means of a glue which may or may not be supplied along with the soles. Preferably, a covering sole is used for this which fits the shoe size of the footwear to be covered. Since the demand for covering soles of this kind can never be exactly foreseen, the supplier has to keep all existing shoe sizes in stock, which represents a considerable investment.
The present invention has for its object to provide a covering sole of the kind mentioned in the opening paragraph which has a wider range of application, i.e. which is suitable for several shoe sizes, so that the stock mentioned above can be rationalized.
According to the invention, a covering sole of the kind mentioned in the opening paragraph is for this purpose characterized in that the body comprises a number of separate zones which are separated from one another by lanes which run at least partly at least substantially parallel to an outer circumference of the body, along which lanes the body has been intentionally weakened so as to render possible a manual separation of at least one zone lying farther to the outside from a zone lying inside the former zone.
With such a sole, the portion having the desired circumferential size can be simply separated from the surrounding zones along the provided weakened lane. This portion is subsequently adhered to the existing sole of the footwear, the remainder is discarded. The invention is based on the recognition that the provided weakened lane on the one hand renders possible a simple, manual separation of the individual zones, while on the other hand the strength and the walking surface of the covering sole, once adhered to the footwear, are not adversely affected thereby.
To facilitate the attachment of the covering sole according tot he invention, a special embodiment thereof is furthermore characterized in that the body comprises a walking surface at a first side and is provided with an adhesive layer for adhesion to the footwear at an opposite side. This means that the adhesive layer need not be provided by the user himself but is present already, and may consist, for example, of a glue layer which is thermally activated. In a preferred embodiment, however, the covering sole according tot he invention is characterized in that the adhesive layer comprises a self-adhesive layer which is shielded by a protective foil before use.